Monday, June 8, 2009

The latest Boom-Studios/Pixar joint hits the comic shop shelves this week. It's a pleasant enough story, but not exactly worth the investment. Reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, a strange looking plastic orb is left among the toys. Nobody knows what kind of mysterious new toy this thing is, so panicked hijinx ensue. This is basically a riff on Buzz's introduction to the fold in the original film. Problem is, it's not a story that can adequately fill an entire issue.

It used to be standard operating procedure for humor comics to have three or four stories per issue. You write a premise, fill it with a few gags and wrap it up in 8-10 pages. The old pros at ARCHIE still follow this formula and perhaps that's part of the reason why you still see those books on the stands today.

TOY STORY #1 takes an eight page story and stretches it to fill an entire issue. There are large, sparse panels with very little dialogue. It's the equivalent of listening to a bad comedian drag out a joke. This title would do well to follow the old formula. After all, there's an entire toy chest full of characters to play with. A collection of three stories plus a few one-page gag comics thrown in would work perfectly. You can even change the title to TOY STORIES. Somebody get me Mark Waid's number. We need to talk!

A debt of gratitude is in order for posting this information. I simply need to tell you that I simply look at your site and I discover it exceptionally fascinating and educational. I can hardly wait to peruse bunches of your posts. bedtime story